We discussed this topic but no one mentioned and I didn't know it at the time, that there are new machines (I saw in the internet Philips and Akai) that are look exactly like the known cassete recorders and they are doing exactly the same job - but instead of copying to a cassete these machines are copying to a blank Cd. It seems nice because the machines can copy to the cd any input - digital or analouge. It is also may be promising because the machines are built in order to copy music and nothing else.

Any member hed seen or worked with such a machine ?

Arie

Arie

As far as I remember - the last thread that discussed this started with a discussion of various different types of these machines.

We then moved to using PC's and copying software as the general opinion was that they gave better (and more flexible) results than the audio only machines.

There are a few new ones out now - and the Marantz (I think it is based on the CD17 KI but can write as well) is considered quite good - of course you'd need another CD player to copy from - and most of your money (about 1K GBP) would be spent on the playback capabilities of such a machine.

Most of the 2 disc ones are supposed to be rubbish - although this is heresay as I haven't tried one of those.

I think the amount of cash you have to spend to get a decent machine could almost buy you a PC + software and have a more flexible and generally more useful solution.

NOTE: Many of these boxes are set up to be user friendly with digital input and not really with analogue. So us types with Naim CD player (no digital out) have to muck about with the analogue outputs.

If you dig out the last discussion - I think it went something like the above.

Cheers
Jonathan

Hi

Actually, I just bought one of these to add onto my Naim-based system (P9/CDX/82/Hi/140/Abotts) at the weekend. It cost 500 pounds in the UK, and is a tweaked Philips based player. It has had rave reviews in most of the UK hifi press.

I've already recorded several vinyl LPs onto it via the analogue ports, and the results are shockingly good, I'm glad to report. It can auto increase track numbers when it "hears" silence so you can also record from a Naim CD player via the analogue inputs and get the track numbers right.

Worth looking into.

Richard

Jonathan ,

I'm not sure we had discussed this point. Many of the members think that copied cd's are inferior to the original. We didn't think of the idea that the cd player that comes with the computer is inferior to a CDi for exammle. So maybe if you are copying a cd from a CDi to a Marantz like Richard's one, you have the benefit of a hi quality cd player as a source, and that improves the quality of the recording although you record it via an analogue input.

Arie

Arie

Up until about a year ago the PC + software (and a good drive) seemed to give better copies. You are, after all, just coping digital to digital information.

However, I will admit I'm about a year out of date - and there may be stuff about now that is better.

I thought we started discussing drives, writers, software etc because of a general opinion that this was the best way. You can pluf the PC stuff into analogue sources as well - and some of the software has 'hiss removing' algortitms if recording from vinyl. I would expect that these would also kill some of the dymanics, but as I don't have any vinyl (though after reading your other posts I might have a look for an LP12 next year) I have not tried this either. A colleague of mine thinks it is wonderful - but he is not a big audiophile.

Cheers
Jonathan